One Should Always Finish What One Has Started
by Salomedancing
Summary: The Historian by Elisabeth Kostova. A desperate woman encounters a stranger. Sprung from a dream I had after finishing the book.


Disclaimer: I don't own it. Dracula probably owns himself, but in lieu of anything else this has to be said to be owned by Elisabeth Kostova, not by me.

One Should Always Finish What One Has Started

She wasn't sure of how long she had been standing on the bridge. It was easy to watch the water flow so far underneath, easy to imagine herself flow with it. It would be cold at first, and she would struggle against it for sure, but then it would be over, blessedly over for all eternity. No problems left, no worries.

"There are many things that would be a better option."

The voice startled her, and she whirled around and saw a man standing a few steps away. At first he was just an immense shadow that loomed over her, but then he moved a step forward and shrank to man size. Taller than she, but not that much taller, and broad of shoulders- a strong man. She couldn't see his face, he was standing in the shadow, but she saw a glimpse of long dark hair and a pale face with a dark moustache.

"Walk with me."

He turned and started to walk, and to her surprise she followed him, walking faster at first so she came up to his side. Why she did, she couldn't say- he had made a command, and she had obeyed. She wouldn't have, normally. She was the kind of girl who laughed and did the opposite whenever a man tried to bend her will. But this man hasn't tried, he had just done it.

They walked in silence. He made no attempt to come closer to her, and she didn't want to come closer to him. There was something with him that scared her. Of course, she told herself, a girl should always be a bit scared of strange men in the middle of the night, but this feeling was different. It was almost like a smell, and then she realised that there was a smell, there was a faint but definitely repugnant smell, about him. She stopped then, ready to bolt.

He stopped as well, but didn't turn to her.

"I've noticed you," he said, his voice clear and precise, with traces of an accent she couldn't place. "I've seen you in the library, working. You have chosen an interesting subject."

That's when she ran. A stranger that talked to her by chance, that she could accept. To have been deliberately followed, that was too much. She ran, and found herself trapped against a wall. He had moved much faster than she, and now he was standing in front of her, blocking her way. She frantically turned her head, looking for help, but the street was deserted.

She could see his face much better now, a cruel, intelligent face with black eyes that seemed to shine too bright. The stench that surrounded him filled her nostrils- it was, she realised, the smell of death.

"Do you really want to die? I could help you. It would be swift, and not too painful."

Every thought of flight had disappeared. She knew she ought to, but her body relaxed against the hard wall instead. He was sincere in his offer, she could hear that. And wasn't a quick death what she had had in mind?

"No. No, I don't want to die."

"Not yet then," he murmured and then he came closer, and she felt dizzy. She vaguely felt strong arms embracing her, and then his face changed into the face of a monster. The change was subtle, she couldn't even tell what happened, but it was there, and she wanted to scream and scream but instead she fell into a warm and welcoming darkness.

When she woke up, she did so in her own bed. Her coat and shoes were gone, and her blouse had been torn around her throat. Her whole body ached, but the worst pain spiked out from a wound in her neck, close to her shoulder. When she washed away the dried blood she saw the puncture marks, made familiar by the horror movies she had seen, but in reality so much uglier, so much more a violation of her. She was weak, her body trembled when she walked around her flat.

On her desk she found her books and papers disturbed. They were neatly arranged, but in an order that was unfamiliar to her. On her notebook, after her last tired sentence, a few words were written in a very old-fashioned handwriting. 

Finish this.

Beside she found money, more money than she had seen in a long time, enough for her to make it through the months she needed to be done. And there, two books she had never seen before. Very old, and when she picked one of them up and read a few words, she realised that this was what she needed, what her thesis so desperately needed.

She remained weak for some time, and the wound healed very slowly. But she worked. She couldn't help herself, ideas ran through her mind and down on the paper. It seemed that she couldn't write fast enough, that her ideas would be gone if she didn't get them down quickly. Sometimes, when she sat in the library, she thought he was watching her, and she raised her head, but she never saw him. Still, she thought he was there, somewhere. He would come back. When she had finished, she was sure he would come back and finish as well, but she wasn't sure if she feared that, or welcomed it.

The End


End file.
